Brothers Alex and Tim Rattray are doing barbecue and beer a little differently at The Granary 'Cue & Brew.

The restaurant opened Tuesday inside the century-old home of Ernst Mueller, the cooper for the Pearl Brewery in the early 1900s. Tim, 29, cut his teeth at Le Rêve, Il Sogno and Sandbar. The younger Rattray, Alex, 25, got into home-brewing after a semester abroad in London and later decided the corporate world wasn't for him.

The idea for the Granary was born partially as a joke — or wishful thinking. Now, the brothers are introducing a small, adventurous menu paired with beers created by brew master Alex.

“What we're doing is really different, especially for San Antonio. But we did a soft open lunch, and then when people came back for dinner, they said it was different. We're fine with that. We really believe in this. Different can be good,” Tim says.

Patrons can expect to see meat sold by the pound at lunch in the coming weeks. For now, dinner service consists of items such as grit fritters with red-eye mayonnaise, Szechuan duck leg with poached egg, ginger/scallion noodles and soy pudding, and an ice cream take on beer and pretzels with mustard caramel.

The brothers sat down to talk about the experience they're crafting for guests and the process of opening their own restaurant.

When did the idea for The Granary come up?

A: It's been (percolating) ... in our heads for a while, but Tim's wanted to own his place for a long time. He got out of the food business for a few years to figure out what kind of place he wanted to do, and I had no interest in doing this. I was in an office 8 to 5, Monday through Friday, and I discovered that wasn't for me at all. The idea has been at least two years in the making. Once we got serious about it, Tim reached out to the Pearl. He was a sous chef over at Sandbar ... and he was familiar with the guys at Pearl.

When did you decide to focus on barbecue?

T: I traveled one summer to New York ... and came back and realized I really wanted to have my own place. We did some brewery tours up in Austin and on our drive back down we said, “There isn't a place in San Antonio where you can get great beer and barbecue at the same place.” We laughed and said we should do that. A couple weeks later, I think I called (Alex) or (Alex) called me, and we said we should really take a look at this. I could eat barbecue every day. ... I can still say that; check back with me in six months. So we were really thinking about a really traditional barbecue. But the more we played with the idea, I realized you can have a lot more fun and there's a lot of space that is untapped by barbecue. Butcher paper and meat by the pound, all that is great and I love it, but then there's this area of, well, what is barbecue? And getting into smoke and live fire and what you can manipulate. Pretty much you can manipulate anything and really tap into some traditions and play to nostalgia but evoke some surprise and excitement from people, which, when I'm dining somewhere, I really want to feel part of the experience and also feel connected to what's going on in the kitchen. That's what we wanted to do here: Take something that's real familiar like barbecue and turn it on its head. That's where lunch and dinner formats are really going to be different.

What will be on the lunch menu?

T: Sliced brisket and pulled pork and house-made sausage. All of our bread is made in-house, all of our pickles. That was another thing that I just wanted to do. Yeah, we could buy bread and pickles, but why not do it ourselves and take something traditional that everyone will expect and elevate it by doing it in-house? All of our pie doughs, all our cakes are made in-house. We're definitely taking a nod to the past at lunch. In the evening, we want people to have more of an elevated experience and show people that it doesn't have to all be greasy butcher paper. We put things, thoughtfully composed, on plates, and we take a lot of ethnic flavors. You look at other cultures and they all have some sort of barbecue tradition of some sort.

What beers will you have on tap?

A: We'll have four house beers and a seasonal beer, as well. We've got out blonde, our IPA, our rye saison and we should have our brown ale. We've got homemade root beer on tap. We've got six other Texas craft beers, and we also have two cask ales, pulled through a beer engine. They'll rotate, but right now, we have two from Jester King (from Austin). Ours is not an aggressive IPA; it's very balanced, and several people have mentioned how well it pairs with the pork belly. We'll have lunch pours available, 8-ounce pours.